Monday, August 6, 2012

Bad News and New Rules -- by KittyCat

Mom forgot something when she said folks should read
the newspaper. I have another reason—well at least if you read our newspaper: restaurant reports.

Mom and Dad used to own a tiny b-b-q place. They say
you get your real business license from the public. How so? It’s like
this—treat your customers like family (and you’ll knock yourself out to give
your family the very best, right?) and they’ll come to your table.

What if health workers who think up rules, make forms,
and have other workers go around and fill them out thought that way? There’d be
less folks working for the government. Ha, ha. Get axed from that cushy deal,
and a body could end up working in food service. –In the kitchen. Cuz bossy
people would make lousy waiters who wouldn’t get good tips.

“Watch out for all those germs,” Mom said. She’d been
reading restaurant reports to Dad. “Like the ones that escape when a food
handler puts on rubber gloves.”

Ha, ha. Get this: food service people are supposed to
wash hands before putting on rubber gloves. I didn’t hear anything about maybe
dipping the gloves in germ-away water after they’re on. Sounds like it
doesn’t matter if the gloves are dirty—just so long as hands inside them are
clean.

I guess if you’re in a hurry, you don’t get marked up
if your hands aren’t dry when you put them inside those gloves. It’s not like
wearing sweaty socks, is it? Guess there’s no such thing as itchy bumps between
your fingers that you can pass on to others. I’ll have to ask my smart tabby
friend, Snookie, but I’ve never heard of athlete’s hands.

Another thing you gotta watch for is what’s called
“sanitation solutions”—they gotta be just right. And I know a bit about that. Mom uses bleach when she cleans the kitchen. She says it’s a teaspoon of
bleach to a gallon of water. But I’ve never
seen her measure it. Uh oh, come to think of it, I don’t think she washes her
hands before she puts on those yellow gloves.

Some places get bad marks cuz they aren’t sanitary at
all, but others are too sanitary. That means when somebody wipes off
your table, and it gets too clean, that’s bad news.

Well, that makes sense, cuz I heard a guy on TV say
kids get sick easier these days cuz their moms don’t let them get around enough
germs. And no fooling, hair can fall out if washed too much. Ha, ha—I’ll never
have that problem. Don’t believe it? Just come and try to shampoo my hair.

Another no-no is dinted cans. I like that one, cuz Mom
can buy dinted cans at a cheap food place, and use the money she saves to buy
treats for me.

I’m glad I’m just a cat. All those rules—how does a
person keep up? And I hear all kinds of rules are made all the time, and more of all kinds of
police, including food police, get hired to make sure nobody gets away with
anything someone else thinks is not so good.

But ya know what? I heard while alley cats got by just
fine, a bunch of nice family dogs and cats got real sick and died a few years
back. So I don’t get it. It’s against rules to have a dinted can of
American-grown green beans in your café, but rat poison in cat food is just
fine. –That is, so long as it comes here from another country.